Tuesday, April 30, 2013

From the "Keeping it Real" file, proof that if you have the lefty cred, no one will ever call you a sellout.

Jane Goodall Institute Blend. For fucking real.

I don't know what it is about this that surprises me and makes my friggin' hair stand on end, but it does.
Seen and photographed "in the wild" as it were at Mountain Equipment Coop in Burlington Ontario.

Side note, Mountain Equipment in addition to having been taken over by a pack of rabid eco-fruitcakes, is now also only for small little tiny people. Here I was, all set to drop $300-$400 samoleans on wet suit, bathing suit, paddling jacket and rain suit... and they don't have anything bigger than XL in the place.

Guess I'll just have to spend all that money someplace where the owners aren't a bunch of hipster shit heads.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Nutty professor Ruth O'Brien from City University of New York has an op-ed piece where she complains that the Boston bomber arrest used "too much force".

This said, the mortuary pictures of the older brother of the two are extremely disturbing, raising questions as to whether the Boston Police Department captured him with too much force.

Which is perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever seen. A guy gets shot multiple times and run over by a car, that's what he looks like. He looks better than a lot of his victims, I'll tell you that. Two men, reportedly armed with guns and explosives, who already fatally shot an MIT campus policeman, you don't screw around. You shoot the hell out of them and ask questions later. So that part the BPD got right, and good on them. Ruth O'Brien doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground.

The United States that I love hunts down terrorists AND follows human rights during capture. Giving the worst criminal or terrorist the most dignity during captivity shows why we should not be feared as a nation and is the best antidote to terrorism.We accept difference, as a nation, and we should champion our greatest strength – inclusivity – at these extreme moments if we want the character of the United States not to be judged harshly by the global community. Once all the adrenaline subsides, I hope we will all be witnesses at the Internal Affairs investigation about undue force.

Here's why she's right though. The Boston police DID use too much force. But not on the suspect they killed, nor on the one they captured. They used too much force on EVERYBODY ELSE in the entire frickin' city of Boston. From afar, on the day it was happening, TV gave us the impression that everybody in Boston was helping the nice policemen hunt down the eeeevile bombers.

We're from the government and we're here to help.

Turns out it was more like a Red Dawn remake, with people dragged out of their houses at gun point, hands on heads, doors kicked in, the whole schmear. House after house, full-on SWAT dynamic entry. No chance to cooperate, just "Shut up and lie on the floor assholes!" Video is all over the web, not so much on the TV I notice.

How to write comedy or a dissertation in a day (or at least collect the data for it!): I woke up this morning feeling like it was Christmas. I knew it was like Christmas Eve as the evening progressed, as I watched these right-wingers' snowflakes landing all over my WordPress pages. And this morning the snow coverage over the map was complete — a circle wipeout, if you can visualize Google's map of the world from 279 different locations (there are only 188 nations, so . . .). They swarmed from fully across the span of the United States, their eyeballs landing on a few pages, and of course misstating and exaggerating my content for their corrupt purpose — to denigrate or blacken me, and my reputation. This is all they do to Obama (chapter 6 of my forthcoming book), so I get it.

"The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry," Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. "But we live in a complex word where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."

This is from a movie.

This is not from a movie. This is real.

I want you people to imagine what the likes of Mayor Bloomberg, former Senator Obama and nutty professor O'Brien would be saying on the TV right now if George W. Bush done exactly what was done and said by President Obama in Boston last week. Just imagine it. They'd be frothing at the mouth in rage, is what. Their frantic denunciations would be running wall-to-wall on CNN, with footage of "JACKBOOT TACTICS!!!" from ATF/FBI/DHS and whatever.

...[major snippage]...It was the old "combination of the political anxiety of vulnerable Democrats from conservative states, deep-seated Republican resistance. and the enduring clout of the National Rifle Association."Wasn't there once a day when the Supreme Court did not interpret the Second Amendment as conferring the right to bear arms separate from militia, conferring it as an individual right counter to the context in the U.S. Constitution was written. Oh, right . . . there was. I preferred Harry Reid: "This is just the beginning," said Mr. Reid, who invoked a procedural tactic that would enable him to bring up the bill again. "It is not the end."

Barry's choice for the new standard cop car, 2015 edition.

The purpose of Barry's gun control bill was to make the House Republicans defeat it. He was angry that his intended political ax-job on the Republicans was thwarted, not that the bill failed. He doesn't care a damn about Sandy Hook or the Boston Marathon, he cares about getting 100% unopposed control over the US federal government. He cares about getting people used to the idea that cop cars are now APCs with belt-fed machine guns on the roof and roadside body cavity searches are the New Normal. He cares about being able to do house-to-house door kicking whenever and where-ever its convenient.

Ruth O'Brien is on board with that. Bigtime. She's a cheerleader. If Barry passes a 100% gun ban, she will be having orgasms of joy while DHS kicks in doors and drags Right Wingers out into the street by the hair and burns their house down just in case there might be a gun in there. Internal passports and travel permits will get a big thumbs up from Ruthy. A computer ID chip implant for every citizen? Awesome idea!

Ruth O'Brien is a control-everything nut. She works for CUNY, that's City University of New York, friends.

Monday, April 22, 2013

This is Google's 13th Earth Day doodle. Today's elaborate animation shows the cycle of seasons represented by the rising and falling sun and moon. Users can play and pause the moon and sun on four different images.
Earth Day is held every year on 22 April to highlight environmental issues, with events held around the world to show support. More than one billion people across 192 countries now participate in activities, with planting trees being one of the most popular ways to show support.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Siri isn't just a pretty voice with the answers. It's also been recording and keeping all the questions users ask.

Exactly what the voice assistant does with the data isn't clear, but Apple confirmed that it keeps users' questions for up to two years. Siri, which needs to be connected to the Internet to function, sends all of its users' queries to Apple.

Apple revealed the information after Wired posted an article this week raising the question and highlighting the fact that the privacy statement for Siri wasn't very clear about how long that information is kept or what would be done with it.

Technically Apple keeps Siri user data for six months, associating that data with the user. After that time, the company will disassociate users from the data, meaning it will remove any identifiers for who input that particular query into Siri. But for the next 18 months, Apple said, it keeps the disassociated data for the sake of product testing and improvement purposes.

Please note, if you dig far enough into the "privacy policy" you'll see all this on your iPod/Pad/Phone, but it isn't something you're going to come across unless you go looking for it.

I solved the problem by disabling Siri and disabling "location services". That lets them know exactly where you are every ten minutes.

Really, if you have any thought that somebody who doesn't like you might be after you, your only hope is to ditch all these devices and stay off the web altogether.

Oh and by the way, despite all this super-duper spy crap, and despite every Google search and web site and Apple and etc. recording every damn thing we do every day, two wet behind the ears punks managed to blow up the Boston Marathon and evade every cop in the Northeast for almost a week. If they'd had a single brain between them they'd have never been caught.

But Apple and Google need to know what I had for lunch, and where, and with whom, and what we talked about, and what I've been surfing on the web.

If you don't feel like contributing to their ever-growing dossier on you, try DuckDuckGo. They could be a front for the NSA for all I know, but they SAY they aren't collecting any info on you. Worth a try, anyway.

"No tax cut would have helped us deawl with this or will help us wecover."

Now, in all fairness it would be mean and nassssty to take the Fwankster out of context like that, so let me paste his complete response to the CNN question here. Taken from the Weekly Standard link above, Bawney said:

"I'm glad you raised that, because it gives me a chance to make a point I've felt strongly about," said Frank. "In this terrible situation, let's be very grateful that we had a well-funded, functioning government. It is very fashionable in America, and has been for some time to criticize government, belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think ... of [their] health care. Here we saw government in two ways perform very well. ... I never was as a member of Congress one of the cheerleaders for less government, lower taxes. No tax cut would have helped us deal with this or will help us recover. This is very expensive."

There you go, in context and everything. Classy, eh?

I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out that the huge and expensive security clown show put on by Boston PD in the time leading up to the race and during the race, which cost tens of millions of dollars and was put on for the specific purpose of calming the public fears about terrorism, did exactly NOTHING to prevent this attack.

Because here's what happened. Backpack bombs got stuffed into garbage cans. It was crowded, somebody saw the person or persons responsible place those bombs. The bystander who saw that did not feel it was any of his or her business to interfere, or "didn't want to get involved", or went and told a cop and the cop ignored them, or thought they might get in trouble if they said anything, or possibly was in Condition Duh and didn't twitch a brain cell that stuffing a backpack in a garbage can is abnormal and suspicious.

If the civilians at the venue aren't vigilant AND feeling empowered to go investigate Mr. Backpack Stuffer, there are not enough cops in the world to secure the Boston Marathon.

Yet Mr. Fwank wants even MORE of your money for an even bigger security theater show, with even more bells and whistles and clowns and balloons, which STILL WON'T PREVENT these kinds of attacks. That would have to be because Mr. Fwank is a blithering idiot (which could well be true) and/or he's not the least bit concerned that a bunch of people died and lost limbs, he just wants your money.

Yeah by the way, "injured" in this case means "limbs blown off" and "multiple organs destroyed", not cuts and bruises. According to news reports the pricks used a ball bearing packing around the explosive like a low-rent Claymore mine. Must have been some pretty fancy explosive too. Not the kind of thing your average mad bomber brews up in the basement. More likely acquired from off-shore interests, shall we say.

To recap, lots of innocent people die or get horribly maimed for life in unprovoked bomb attack, Bawney Fwank blames Republican tax cuts. Awesome.

Stay classy you Dems and Lefties. And keep talking like good ol' Bawney here. We love knowing what you really think.

The Phantom

PS, yes dear Lefty readers (if you're out there), I am deliberately mocking Bawney Fwank's thpeethp impedimenthpppp. As hawd as I can. With malith, fowthoughtpp and malithithiouth intentppp. Because Bawney is a BIG ATHHOLE and theriothly in need of an enormoth ath kicking. (Verbal only, of courth. Wouldn'tpp want anybody thinking I meant to thay he detherved atual violenth or thompthing. Heaventhp forfend!)

Barack Obama's administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal. Under
President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20
million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices
(IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current
White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.That
assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security
Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the
Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and
injured at least 173 others.

There you go. Cut 45% from the anti-bomb budget, then go on TV after a bombing and demand more money. Your leadership at work, America.

Y'all should show up on their doorstep with torches and pitch forks, you ask me. "Not showing up to riot is a failed Conservative policy."

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Today, DC Comics told Wired that it will continue to expand the LGBT diversity of its superhero universe by introducing the first openly transgender character in a mainstream superhero comic.
In Batgirl #19, on sale today in both print and digital formats, the character Alysia Yeoh will reveal that she is a transwoman in a conversation with her roommate, Barbara Gordon (aka Batgirl). Taking care to distinguish Yeoh's sexual orientation from her gender identity,Batgirl writer Gail Simone noted that the character is also bisexual.

As a dude who came of age in the "Free Love!" 1970's, I have to say that its getting pretty hard to tell the players without a program. Here we have a guy, who's a chick, who likes to sleep with guys (because she's a chick), but also sleeps with chicks (because she's actually a guy?) Who lives with freakin' Batgirl, and the most important thing we all need to know about Batgirl is... she sleeps with chicks. Who sometimes used to be guys, I guess.

My question to DC Comics is: WHO CARES?!!! Is this genderbending freakishness what kids are looking for in a comic book these days? Comes the answer: No, but they SHOULD be!

Still, Simone believes that diversity isn't just a continuing issue for superhero comics: "It's the issue for superhero comics. Look, we have a problem most media don't have, which is that almost all the tentpoles we build our industry upon were created over a half century ago… at a time where the characters were almost without exception white, cis-gendered, straight, on and on. It's fine — it's great that people love those characters. But if we only build around them, then we look like an episode of The Andy Griffith Show for all eternity."
She added that she thinks most superhero comics readers don't have a problem with increased diversity, but rather with stories that promote sermonizing over storytelling. Alysia will be "a character, not a public service announcement … being trans is just part of her story. If someone loved her before, and doesn't love her after, well — that's a shame, but we can't let that kind of thinking keep comics in the 1950s forever."

But Batwoman's proposal also comes at a time when Batwoman publisher DC Comics is taking heat from comics fans for another LGBTQ issue: the hiring of noted homophobe Orson Scott Card as the writer of an upcoming Superman story. The decision to hire Card, who is on the board of the National Organization of Marriage (NOM), drew fire last week from LGBTQ rights supporters, who started a petition to have him dropped by DC, which has currently garnered nearly 14,000 online signatures thus far.

Get that? "Noted homophobe Orson Scott Card", who has the outrageous gall to suggest that marriage is supposed to be for one boy and one girl, is the hate filled frothing nutcase here who wants to damage America by forcing it to look like the Andy Griffith Show. Because the Andy Griffith Show depicts a hellish nightmare society where torture and rapine run rampant through the streets, and the starving denizens fight each other to the death over cans of pork and beans... oh wait... I don't remember that part.

Is anybody out there reading this dreck? DC is owned by Warner, and Warner isn't exactly burning up the stock market these last years, so I'm thinking no. Oh well, just keep on a couple more years selling this ridiculous trash, then they'll go broke and get sold to somebody with half a brain. Who will most likely FIRE the hell out of Ms. Gail Simone and all her little hipster compatriots.

Monday, April 08, 2013

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is actively shopping for a drone that would "stalk hunters," the organization said Monday.
The group says it will "soon have some impressive new weapons at its disposal to combat those who gun down deer and doves" and that it is "shopping for one or more drone aircraft with which to monitor those who are out in the woods with death on their minds."

A growing number of [people] have stopped paying for cable and satellite TV service, and don't even use an antenna to get free signals over the air. These people are watching shows and movies on the Internet, sometimes via cellphone connections. Last month, the Nielsen Co. started labeling people in this group "Zero TV" households, because they fall outside the traditional definition of a TV home. There are 5 million of these residences in the U.S., up from 2 million in 2007.

Because this is an AP story and the AP couldn't find the truth about where their own ass is with both hands and a flashlight, the story is making this all about "new technology". Yeah, new like DVDs and newer than VHS tape, but yet completely the same thing. New like video broadcast on the Intertubes instead of on the airwaves, yet still broadcast.

Its not about the cost of cable, the commercials or the time stuff is on, thanks to TiVo and a host of other widgets you can record whatever anybody broadcasts and watch when you want commercial free. Its not about any of those technical details.

It is purely and simply about what's on TV. Television is a pure Leftist/Statist/Socialist monoculture, philosophically speaking. If you're not a pureblood raging Liberal, TV seems increasingly stupid. Oh, and a lie. They're lying and not even pretending not to these days.

Furthermore, its boring. Horribly, stunningly, crushingly boring. All the TV shows have the same plot lines. The same jokes. The same situations. Gays are always good and funny, women are never fat, white males are stupid and boring, skinny 110 lb women can punch out 250lb male weight lifters whose necks have a larger cross section than the woman's thigh. Guns are bad, except for the purely gratuitous shootout in every single f-ing episode. A random nerd can hack NORAD in ten seconds or less right before the commercial break and save the day. Et cetera.

Right now, today, there are YouTube comedy series run by -kids- that have more subscribers than CNN has viewers. Three or four university students hack together a comedy skit every week or two, and they get more eyeballs every day than a whole freakin' national news network. This is not because the students are such peerless geniuses, you may be sure.

TORONTO - Brandi Liles was stunned to learn two of the four Toronto gang-bangers who held her and a former boyfriend at gunpoint nearly eight years ago are dead.

The Windsor woman learned late Monday afternoon that Michael Nguyen, 23, one of the home invaders who changed her life forever, was gunned down at Yorkdale mall over Easter weekend.

And until she spoke to the Toronto Sun a short time later, Liles had no idea Qoheleth Chong, 23, was shot dead four months ago.

"I'm shocked," Liles, 34, said, admitting she has "mixed" feelings about the killings.

"The victimized part of me feels relief, but I also can't help but feel it's just a shame," she said. "I feel sorry for their moms."

Liles wasn't surprised to learn a third home invader, Rowan Atkins, has been busted twice on gun charges since he, Chong and Nguyen — who were only 16 and 17 at the time of the home invasion — were released in 2008 after spending only two years and seven months behind bars.

That's what happens. The sons of beeotches keep doing their usual until they either die or do something to somebody -important-. At which point the brain-dead liberal judge will allot them a proper jail sentence.

Nice these two got waxed, troubling that one of them got it in the middle of Yorkdale Mall on Easter Sunday. Kinda hard on the bystanders, eh?

Connecticut state law makers propose a -bipartisan- bill on gun control that is pretty well exactly what we have here in CanaDuh. License to posess a firearm, license to buy a firearm, license to buy ammunition, registry for gun owners, registry for guns, and special super-duper "education" courses to take if you want the licenses. Also they get to decide what gun you will buy, nassssty black guns are banned.

Important note for our US friends, tell all the celebrating liberals you know that Canada's crime rate has been utterly unaffected by twenty years of this, and we still have mass shootings up here. Yes, we do.

Additionally, all the paperwork surrounding the gun issue makes it no fun anymore. You keep your stuff in a closet and don't tell -anyone- what you've got. You don't go hunting and you don't go to the range, because if you do there's more forms to fill out and some apparatchik will be sneering down his/her nose at you the whole time. I have not been shooting in Canada since 1992, because its just not enjoyable anymore. The threat of arrest and jail hangs over everything like the stink of a rotting corpse.

I go shooting in Arizona instead, where you can still go to the range and shoot without having Big Brother demand your papers.

I think the important thing for Americans in this debacle is to realize, finally and for all time, that the Republican Party is no less statist and socialist than the DemocRat party. The whole RINO thing is a myth. The name "Republican" now officially means "Pink Underwear Socialist". That would be the kind of socialist who continues to pretend he wants a smaller government during election season, but pours the coal to it after the election is won. Full steam ahead on the USS Titanic, baby.

Anyone who wants a smaller government and more personal freedom is advised to take note and make your voting plans accordingly. Doing a Tea Party takeover of the Republican Apparat would seem to be Job One, looking at things from Canadastan.